Michele Bachmann has been one of the loudest, shoutiest shouters in favor of an amendment to the Minnesota state constitution that would define marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman. Unsurprisingly, Bachmann's gay stepsister Helen LaFave is displeased with the Congresswoman's foaming homophobic zealotry, and has decided that it would probably be best if Bachmann wasn't present when LaFave marries her lesbian partner next year.

In a heartbreaking interview with the New York Times, LaFave remarked that when they were kids, she looked up to her older sister Michele. She attended Michele's wedding to Marcus Bachmann, and Michele got to know Nia, Helen's partner of 25 years. But as Bachmann's political star has careened upward and wildly off into sky, landing smack in the middle of the constellation of Perpetua Fibulous, Slayer of Facts, her anti-gay rhetoric became more fevered, and the two women grew further apart. Now, their relationship is strained. From the Times piece.

And while she never doubted that Michele was being true to her private convictions, she couldn't comprehend Michele's need to make those convictions so public, to put them in the foreground of her political career, and to drive a wedge into their family.

She told Michele as much, in a letter dated Nov. 23, 2003. She sent copies to her four siblings, her father and one of Michele's brothers, and kept one herself. In the letter she described her "hurt and disappointment that my stepsister is leading this charge."

"You've taken aim at me," Helen wrote to Michele. Referring to Nia, she added: "You've taken aim at my family."

Michele, she said, never acknowledged the letter in any way.

LaFave has remained mostly silent through Bachmann's political career, but she told the Times that as Election Day approaches and Minnesotans grow closer to determining what rights she will have to marry her long-term partner, she can't stay silent any longer.

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That Bachmann would continue to push against the right of her family members even after spending years of her life living alongside an actual gay person she claims to love is a testament to how single mindedly power hungry (or unhinged) Bachmann must be. I mean, even Dick "The Penguin" Cheney managed to experience a change of cold, shiny metal heart when his daughter and her same-sex partner began a family of their own, and the former Vice President is now an advocate in favor of legalized gay marriage.

LaFave hopes to marry Nia at some point in the future, but doesn't think that it would be appropriate to invite Michele. Lord knows the gay is catching.